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bird's eye

1st October 1971, Page 49
1st October 1971
Page 49
Page 49, 1st October 1971 — bird's eye
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

view by the Hawk • Uneasy riders

Travel certainly broadens the mind. Colleague Paul Brockington was travelling on a United Tours coach returning to Tel Aviv from a tour that included visits to Nazareth, Ti berias and Capernaum when the Governmentlicensed tourist guide announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just picked up a nice girl soldier. In Israel, girls have 20 months of compulsory military service, from 18 to 20 years of age."

The coach had stopped at a newly opened kibbutz-run tourist cafe at Dodrat, not far from Nazareth, and the guide, Emil Van Huiden, explained to Paul that "we picked her up because she belongs to the kibbutz and she asked the driver".

It was a Saturday—the Jewish Sabbath— and the southbound lane of the single' carriage way road was crowded with lorries on the way from kibbutzim (plural for kibbutz) in the North to Tel Aviv carrying agricultural products for sale in the Sunday morning market. True to form, according to the locals, there was quite a lot of wild driving by motorists and lorry drivers, but true to the traditions of the Israeli army, the nice girl soldier appeared to be inured to hazard. There wasn't quite the same obvious coolness among the English, American, German, French and Ugandan passengers on the coach!

• Environment

One of our Men in the North was recently taken round the offices of the Hargreaves Group of Companies in that lovely part of Yorkshire adjacent to Bramham Moor. If there was an annual prize for the most stately offices in the transport industry. surely Bowcliffe Hall would be among the front-runners for the first award, because the company has retained the Hall in its original state so far as humanly possible —a remark which applies to the magnificent grounds as well.

The place was built in .1805 by a Manchester cotton spinner called William Robinson but the unfortunate man went bankrupt before it was finished and he had to sell it—or what there was of it—for a price reputed to be £2000.

The Hall has had transport connections of a sort before. George Lane Fox, who bought the place early in the 19th century, was something of an eccentric (he died in 1848, leaving debts of £175,000) and was known over most of Yorkshire as "the squire"; it is said that one of his activities was to drive the London-Carlisle mail coach.

The last private owner was Mr Robert Blackburn, chairman of the Blackburn Aircraft Co, who had it from 1920 until his death in 1955, when it was taken over and cOnverted into offices.

• Bigger BEN?

BEN, the Motor and Cycle Trades Benevolent Fund, whose field includes those working in the coachbuilding, commercial vehicle and service equipment industries, needs around £215,000 to meet running costs this year. It hopes to just about break even, but it is going to need more money in the future to cover the running cost of new accommodation which is to be provided.

Those who can help by showing at a trade or society meeting a very short colour film, "Moment of Truth", on BEN's activities may care to contact general secretary Colin Cudlipp at Lynwood, Sunninghill, Ascot, Berks. He can also supply a projector and/or projectionist.

The film, which shows how BEN is helping two particular families, cost £1000 to make —not a penny from the Fund—and was premiered last week at Shell-Mex House, London.

• Watch with brother?

The Dartford tunnel under the Thames gets busier month by month, especially with commercial traffic, but one aspect is causing the authorities a lot of concern—vandalism in the public lavatories on the Kent side. (Before assumptions are made about the men of Kent, perhaps I should add that there are no toilets on the Essex side.) What is particularly infuriating—and puzzling—to the general manager, Captain F. L. Millns, is that nobody reports the vandalism when it is going on, and the destruction has been really savage and extensive. One of the latest suggestions is that there should be closed-circuit TV cameras in the men's toilets, linked to monitor screens in the control room where tunnel traffic is watched by TV. Big Brother with a vengeance! Is nothing sacred?

• Campaign

A growing number of cars in South and East London are carrying a sticker on the rear window with the message: "No through lorries. Back Buchanan—make Greenwich fit for visitors".

If there were a ready by-pass for Greenwich, I am sure trucks would use it. In the meantime, it occurs to me that this is a campaign which could spread—the recent environment battles have provided a warning that these small beginnings should not be ignored.


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